Community Grants (Giving Project)

Nontraditional Participatory grantmaking

Colorado's grassroots participatory fund. A Giving Project of community activists with direct social justice experience reviews proposals, conducts site visits and makes funding decisions by consensus. Start-up, established and multi-year tiers support small community-organizing groups, the kind of partner a social work researcher needs for community-based participatory work in Colorado.

Indicative award

$4k–$10k (total award)The page states Start-Up Grants (organizations under four years old) are up to $4,000 and Established Grants up to $10,000. Multi-year grants are considered for established groups funded at least twice in the previous three years; no separate multi-year figure is published.

Timing

Periodic callsPeriodic calls · Feb, SepNo specific published date recorded. This funder publishes a cycle rather than a date, and this database does not invent one.Historically two cycles a year with February and September deadlines, disbursing in June and February. The page states regular applications are paused until Fall 2027, so there is no open deadline; treat February/September as the historical pattern that may resume.

Who can apply

Community organisation, Practitioner

Eligibility

Applicant must be a 501(c)(3), have a fiscal sponsor, or be a worker-owned cooperative; be based in Colorado (with an exception for regional Indigenous groups whose territory overlaps the state); have an annual budget of $350,000 or less; and be led by people from historically marginalized communities, with priority to community organizing work. A university cannot be the applicant. Important: the page states regular applications are paused until Fall 2027 while a strategic plan is implemented, with no new proposals accepted in Fall 2026 or Spring 2027; eligible current grantees are contacted

SSWR clusters

Topics

community organizing · social justice · start-up grants · multi-year grants · colorado

Apply at

https://chinookfund.org/apply/

This entry

Curated by the working group. Written 2026-08-07. The funder link has not yet been machine-checked.

Amounts and dates on this page are indicative and are maintained by people rather than scraped. Funders change ceilings, windows and eligibility without notice; confirm all details at the source above before applying.

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Community Grants (Giving Project)

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